How Strong Do We Look Now?

Reuters
reports that Dick Cheney was doing some counter-programming to the
Democratic National Convention by speaking on the West Coast at Camp Pendleton.

He said, "Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are
invited by the perception of weakness."

This statement is half right and half wrong. Some terrorist attacks are
caused by the use of strength. For instance, the Shi'ites of southern Lebanon
had positive feelings toward Israel before 1982. They were not very politically
mobilized. Then the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the South.
They killed some 18,000 persons, 9,000 of them estimated to be innocent
civilians. The Shi'ites of the South gradually turned against them and started
hitting them to get them back out of their country. They formed Hizbullah and
ultimately shelled Israel itself and engaged in terrorism in Europe and
Argentina. So, Hizbullah terrorist attacks were certainly caused by Sharon's use
of "strength."

On the other hand, a perception of weakness can invite terrorist attacks by
ambitious and aggressive enemies. Osama bin Laden recites a litany of instances
in which the United States abruptly withdrew when attacked, and takes comfort in
the idea of the U.S. as a paper tiger. He instances Reagan's 1983 withdrawal
from Beirut after the Marine barracks was bombed and Clinton's departure from
Somalia after the Blackhawk Down incident.

The lesson I take away from all this is that the US should not get involved
in places that it may get thrown out of, because that projects an image of
weakness and vulnerability to the country's enemies. There was no way the United
States could possibly have maintained a presence in Lebanon in the early 1980s,
and Reagan was foolish to put those Marines in there, and even more foolish to
put them in without pylons around them to stop truck bombs. The country was
embroiled in a civil war, and it would have taken a massive commitment of troops
to make a difference. In the wake of the Vietnam failure, the American public
would not have countenanced such a huge troop buildup. Likewise, Bush senior was
foolish to send those troops to Somalia in the way he did (which became a poison
pill for his successor, Bill Clinton).

The question is whether the quagmire in Iraq makes the U.S. look weak. The
answer is yes. Therefore, by Cheney's own reasoning, it is a mistake that opens
us to further attacks.

Reuters reports, "Cheney said Americans were safer and he stood by prewar
characterizations of Iraq as a threat despite the failure to find weapons of
mass destruction and new warnings by Cheney and other administration officials
that another major terrorist attack may be coming."

Iraq was not a threat to the United States. Period. Let me repeat the
statistics as of the late 1990s:

While a small terrorist organization could hit the U.S. because it has no
return address, a major state could not hope to avoid retribution and therefore
would be deterred. Cheney knows that Ba'athist Iraq posed no threat to the U.S.
He is simply lying. I was always careful not to accuse him of lying before the
war because who knows what is in someone else's mind? Maybe he believed his own
bullsh*t. But there is no longer any doubt that Iraq had no weapons of mass
destruction, no active nuclear weapons program, no ability to deliver anything
lethal to the U.S. homeland, and no operational cooperation with al-Qaeda. These
things are not matters of opinion. They are indisputable. Ipso facto, if an
intelligent person continues to allege them, he is prevaricating.

"President Bush is determined to remove threats before they arrive instead of
simply awaiting for another attack on our country. So America acted to end the
regime of Saddam Hussein . . . Sixteen months ago, Iraq was a gathering threat
to the United States and the civilized world. Now it is a rising democracy, an
ally in the war on terror and the American people are safer for it."

I have never understood the phrase "civilized world." To what exactly does it
refer? How do you get into it? Can you drop out of it? Is Germany in it? How
about 1933-1945? Is Egypt in it? (Surely it helped invent "civilization"?)

But the more important point is that a) there was no threat to the United
States from the regime of Saddam Hussein, and there certainly was no gathering
threat. The Iraqi military was more dilapidated by the hour; and b) It is
obvious that any situation that kills and maims thousands of U.S. servicemen and
women every year is not "making us safer" (the troops are part of "us", Mr.
Cheney).

Even sections of the Republican Party are openly questioning Cheney's claims.
Sen.
Lincoln Chafee said that Iraq is more dangerous now than when he visited
last October. He clearly fears that the Bush administration is planning to go
after Iran, and suggests seeking cooperation from Tehran instead. (It worries
me no end that Washington insiders like Chafee should be apprehensive about
White House policy toward Iran, and confirms my suspicions that Tehran is next.)